Sunday, January 4, 2015

The Snow Shovel: The Secret of Happiness? (And Other Thoughts about Winter, Religion, Heaven and Hell)

T.S. Eliot was wrong—April isn’t the
cruellest month, as he suggested in his epic poem, The Waste Land. In Manitoba, that dubious honour surely goes to
January.

For me, at least,
January is always the bleakest time of year. Christmas is over,
with its festive lights and trees and presents and family gatherings. Ahead
lies nothing but a seemingly endless number of long, wintry weeks until March
comes along.

When I think of January, I'm reminded of
how C.S. Lewis described the land of Narnia when it was under the rule of
the evil witch: Always winter, but never Christmas.

And if that isn’t bad enough, for Manitobans there’s no
escaping January’s hellish cold. Which seems like a mixed metaphor, until you
learn that the ancient Norse found the two to be quite synonymous.

For them, the worst possible eternal
torment in the afterlife wasn’t fire and heat, but the same thing they dreaded
in this life—cold. Hell for them was a place of freezing
temperatures.

Heaven, on the other hand, was a place where huge fires blazed and
crackled while the mead cup was passed and tales of brave adventures were told.

Contrast this with the idea of hell
for the Christian, Jewish and Muslim religions.

For adherents of those groups, which originated in the hot and arid Middle East, the worst
fate in the afterlife would be to spend eternity where the sun blazes.

For
them, heaven was cool and comfortable, which may be why Muslims imagine it
to be like a garden paradise. In fact, the word “paradise” comes from the old
Iranian word pairidaēza, which means an enclosed, or walled-in, garden.

Muslims in ages past gave this heavenly
ideal earthly expression by building elaborate gardens with enclosed courts,
fountains, ponds, trees and shrubs, all surrounded by shady and cool arcades.

In some ways, winter is an excellent religious metaphor.
For one thing, it’s a great equalizer. We all look alike under our big
winter coats, hats and scarves—rich, poor, old, young, male and female.

Before God, as before the chilling wind, we
are all the same.

Winter reminds us of our puny place in the
universe. We may like to think we are in charge, but once a stationary cold
front—a dreaded phrase, if ever there was one—settles over the land, there’s nothing anyone can do to move it. We can only endure its power.

Winter also reminds us of how much we
need each other.

Your car might break down in July, but what’s the worst that
could happen? A sunburn is nothing compared to frostbite or even death. But when a
car breaks down in winter, or gets stuck in a snowdrift, people who might
cruise on by in summer will stop whatever they are doing to help.

Finally, winter can be a
time for reflection. With many activities curtailed by cold and snow, we have
time to sit and think about our life and its meaning—something best done with a
cup of hot chocolate and maybe a cat or dog on your lap.

As the Reverend
Louise Westfall of Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio
puts it, winter is a time when “we humans are forced to go inside, literally
because of the cold, but also metaphorically, so we can use it as a time of
renewal and rest.”

American
humorist Garrison Keillor thinks that winter is good for the soul.

Once it
gets going, says the native Minnesotan, people can pick up their shovels “and recover a sense of
focus and purpose and balance,” leaving behind “all of
that emotional turmoil of balmy days, the romantic longings, the quest for
individual identity and so forth.”

Winter,
he goes on to say about Minnesota and, by extension, Manitoba, “is what we
were meant for and we welcome it. We thrive on adversity and that's just the
truth. The snow shovel is the secret of happiness.”

OK, that might be
taking it too far. But there’s no denying the satisfaction that comes from a
well-shovelled driveway. Or, better yet, the satisfaction that arises from
shovelling your neighbour’s driveway—and maybe even the sidewalk, too.